KEELEY Small Cap Value Fund Comments on Sallie Mae

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Jul 30, 2014

Recently, Sallie Mae (SLM) spun its FFELP (Federal Family Education Loan Program) division Navient (NAVI). In this case we elected to keep Sallie Mae Bank (SLM, the parent) and we sold Navient. Our rationale for selling NAVI was that it’s strictly a US government backed loan originator/servicer and will not likely grow as fast as SLM who dominates the private student lending market. SLM offered better downside risk given its loans generate substantially wider spreads and virtually all of its loans are co-signed by the students’ parents. Further, by electing to remain invested in SLM, we should also benefit from the company’s efforts to sell additional products into its customer base like deposits, credit cards, etc. We believe this combination of upside opportunity derived from interacting early and often with students and downside protection via cosigned loans made SLM an attractive long-term investment.

From John Keeley (Trades, Portfolio)’s KEELEY Small Cap Value Fund Second Quarter 2014 Commentary.